Archive for Online Management
May 13, 2010 at 3:58 pm · Filed under Business News, Online Management
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Competent human resource management is crucial for business success. People management may be developed and learned. Having a innate affinity for dealing with people is an advantage, nevertheless there are some things you can do that will make the process easy. Developing relationships: Start by using a person’s name. Encourage conversation; get eye contact during a conversation. Show respect, and be sure to pay attention to everything the other individual has to say, irrespective of whether you agree or not. The development of the ability to listen is one of the most important things you can do to better your human resources management skills. Welcome any contributions from your team members. Live up to promises: Don’t make promises you won’t fulfill. If you can’t deliver on what you promise, the delicate bond of trust is violated, and individuals will not give you their best efforts if they don’t trust you. Each time you make a commitment or give your word on something, you are squandering your time unless you keep your promises. You’ll find, if your people can’t depend on you, your staff will not be available when you truly need them.
Feedback is important: Feedback must be a two way process. Maintaining an open mind regarding other’s views is an important skill in effective talent management. If you can show accessibility and receptiveness, you show that you value your co-worker’s opinions, your ideas will be appreciated in return. Bona Fide discourse also furthers creative trouble-shooting, ways of fulfilling the mission of the business, and develops the company dynamic. By allowing the team some input, the project and the results becomes important to every member. Communicating is important: Managing your team comes down to one concept - good communication. Maintaining an open door policy, listen intently to other people’s views, welcome feedback , and permit each of your team to express themselves. Inspire staff not just to communicate to you, but also to speak to each other. The creative process depends a great deal on the open exchange of opinions, and by communicating with one another, it becomes easy to spot any issues before they might become problems, permitting corrective action to be implemented to prevent further problems.
A little work will be necessary, however the rewards are worth it. By encouraging a good team dynamic and developing effective listening techniques, you can easily achieve a successful business.
February 9, 2010 at 11:22 am · Filed under Lifestyle Center, Online Management, Tuition Center
Education in early England was limited to free schools teaching Latin grammar. Apprenticeship was the main source of learning and means of entering into practical occupations. A number of statutes were passed to regulate and protect the apprentice system and providing a means of occupation for the poor and orphaned. This continued until the Sunday school system was introduced as a means to prevent children from being involved in criminal activities. Most of the schools were governed by the Church of England until the introduction of free compulsory education and two of the most renowned and respected universities were founded, The University of Oxford and The University of Cambridge.
The 19th century saw revolutionary changes in the education system with the introduction of state funding for the construction of schools and a bill was passed for public education. New subjects on science and literature were introduced.
During the turmoil of the 20th century, the education system was revamped by replacing school boards with Local education authorities and the introduction of several education Acts, resulting in raising the minimum leaving age to 16, entrenching practical work experience along with theoretical understanding, and advocating vocational training for teenagers. Targets for Literacy, Numeracy and Truancy were established. Private schools such as those run by the Varkey Group (headed-up by Indian businessman Sunny Varkey) add additional options to the choices available.
New targets for the 21st century include increasing the school leaving age to 18 which included academic as well as apprenticeships and work based training.
January 7, 2010 at 11:34 pm · Filed under Business News, Miscellaneous, Online Management
A successful business depends to a great extent on the competent management of people. People management may be improved and studied. Having a spontaneous affinity for communicating with people may be a plus, but you can do many things to simplify the process. Relationship Development: Begin by remembering the names of the workforce. Engage in conversation; make eye contact during a conversation. Have a respectful attitude, in addition do pay attention to the other person’s thoughts, even if you disagree or have a different viewpoint. The development of listening skills is among the most effective things you can do to better your people management skills. Welcome any input from your co-workers.
Live up to your word: Don’t make promises you can’t keep. If you can’t deliver on what you have promised, the delicate bond of trust is damaged, and if they don’t trust you people will not perform at their best. Each time you say something or give your word on something, ensure you can keep your promises or don’t bother giving your word at all. You’ll discover, if your people can’t depend on your promises, you can be certain they will act in a similar manner. Feedback is essential: Feedback must be a two-way process. People management skills mean being open to all feedback. Being approachable and receptive proves that other people’s opinions count, and they should appreciate yours. Honest discourse in addition promotes innovative ideas, ways of fulfilling goals, and develops the team dynamic. If team members can express themselves, each member of staff takes an interest in the project’s outcome. Encourage all sorts of communication: Good communication is the key to managing people with skill. Be accessible, utilize good listening techniques, retain an open mind, and permit team members a chance to express their opinions. Staff must be inspired to talk to one another not just with you. The growth of any business relies to a great extent on the interchange of opinions, and through speaking with one another, you can root out any issues at an early stage, and measures may be applied before things get out of hand.
Acquiring these skills will require time, but the payoffs far outbalance the effort necessary. By establishing the bonds of a good team and taking heed of your team’s suggestions, you can have a successful business.
December 5, 2009 at 9:15 am · Filed under Business News, Online Management
Employment Verification is a extensive process where quality and efficiency are key. This process, along with the other daily tasks placed upon a Human Resources department can create overtime hours and cause bottle necks in the hiring process. Keeping confidentiality into consideration can also help a likely employer find a better solution to the verification procedure of all new hires that would not only be wholly confidential, but faster, easier, and more accurate as well. Now companies such as VeraTrack are now being used for outsourcing this process. Outsourcing Employment Verification has been known to be cost effective as well as relieve the strain placed upon the Human Resources department.
Human Resource employees spend much unneeded time on the phone verifying employee work histories. The tedious and time consuming job of performing Employment Verification is not economical for an in-house Human Resources department in a large corporation. However, there has recently been a new development of an innovative service that a savvy company who hires a multitude of people, can now use to outsource the burden of having to individually making calls that inevitably which waste invaluable hours that could instead be spent servicing the needs of their current employees as opposed to being used for verifying others for possible employment. At conservative rates, there is no reason even the tiniest company needs to do this menial task for themselves.
November 10, 2009 at 2:28 pm · Filed under Miscellaneous, Online Management
Nowadays some human resource managers feel that, by providing staff with basic instruction in safety in the working environment, they have everything required to prevent a catastrophe. The truth is though, staff should have more than the basics in health & safety regulatory affairs. You need to supply your staff with appropriate supervision, not to mention provide the right safety gear and give them the chance to practice.
An employee in a supervisory job has a much bigger role to carry out than simply general supervision. A supervisor must be a good communicator, they should also see health & safety education as important. On top of insuring compliance with health & safety regulations, the supervisor must also check that every employee works well. This is a challenging task. It means that the supervisor is required to have an excellent understanding of the industry best practice and the product in addition to a very high standard of comprehension of the safety legislation, the identification of hazards, and CPR.
It just isn’t sufficient to send your employees to a health & safety training course. To positively spot a hazardous area they require to put their knowledge into practise. Employees in addition require insights into the required safeguards that they are required to take and also how to cope when the worst happens. Your employees are only totally protected when their training and procedures have become second nature.
Training is by all accounts ineffective if you don’t provide the necessary safety gear. Should employees find they are missing items that is needed, or find out that equipment is not working correctly only after a crisis has occurred, the education they have completed will have been essentially for nothing.
You need to examine each item often to ensure that all the necessary gear is where it should be and that all the supplies are being properly looked after. If an item does not come up to the pertinent criteria, make sure that it is rectified as promptly as possible and put it back in the right place.
Health & safety instruction is important for the health of your workers, but they also require quality gear, scheduled practises, and a supervisor who is gifted with contagious enthusiasm. If you implement these steps you will find all the safety regulations be part of the staff’s working habits and no longer something challenging for the workforce to remember.
September 7, 2009 at 3:06 am · Filed under Health Issues, Online Management
Numerous managers feel that, if all of their employees have sufficient health and safety education, they have everything they require to cope with an incident. In reality though, employees must have more than training in health and safety legislation. You need to supply your staff with appropriate supervision, the appropriate equipment, and the opportunity to practice. Each team must have a professional supervisor to keep an eye on employee performance, but this person must also fulfill a much larger purpose. Your selection of supervisor is required to see their health and safety training as fundamental and have the ability to get other employees feeling enthusiastic about it.
As well as checking conformity with health and safety legislation, the role of a supervisor includes supervising employee performance too. Of course it isn’t easy to do all this at once. An effective supervisor needs to have a broad knowledge of the industry and manufacturing procedures in addition to an in-depth knowledge of up-to-date legislation with regard to safety, risk appraisal and CPR.
Providing health and safety training really isn’t sufficient for your employees. They must practise risk assessment and the identification of problem areas. Employees need to know how to eliminate hazards and also how best to cope if the unexpected happens. Only when these processes become second nature are staff properly protected. Good safety apparatus is every bit as necessary to the well being of your staff as any training. If they are missing gear that is essential, or even discover that equipment is not functioning properly when they are needed, then all the training available is not going to help them.
It is essential to perform thorough checks regularly to make sure that you possess all the necessary gear and that everything is working correctly. Should you have a issue with your equipment, ensure that it is remedied as promptly as possible and put it back in the appropriate place.
Your employees need to receive proper health & safety instruction, but in addition they also require the proper gear, the chance to practise, and a supervisor with the sort of enthusiasm that people find contagious. Only then will complying with health and safety legislation will soon become established in the culture of your business and no longer an inconvenience that staff have to make an effort to remember all the time.
September 1, 2009 at 2:13 am · Filed under Business News, Miscellaneous, Online Management
A successful business depends on the competent management of employees. These skills can be acquired and learned. It can be an advantage to have a intuitive affinity for managing with people, but you can do numerous things that will make the process easy. Forging relationships: Remembering individuals by name can be a good beginning. Speak to staff; get eye contact when you’re speaking. Have a respectful attitude, and be sure to be attentive to the other person’s opinion, even if you disagree or have a different viewpoint. Listening to what others say is one of the most crucial people management skills in your arsenal. Be sure to exhibit interest in what everyone can contribute to the team.
Show integrity: Don’t make promises you can’t keep. If you can’t deliver on what you promise, the delicate bond of trust is shattered, and nobody will offer you their best if they can’t trust you. Each time you give a commitment or make a promise about something, you are squandering your time and effort unless you act with integrity. To be frank, when your people can’t count on your word, you can be certain they will behave in a similar fashion. Feedback is important: Feedback must be a two way process. Human Resources management skills mean being open to all feedback. Being approachable and open proves that your co-worker’s views count, and they should appreciate yours. Supporting conversation also promotes innovative ways of thinking, ways of accomplishing the mission of the company, and strengthens the team. When team members have a voice, each member of staff invests in the results of the project.
Communicating is fundamental: Dealing with employees boils down to the same thing - good communication. Be approachable, use good listening skills, remember to welcome feedback , and allow all your staff to express themselves. Employees should be encouraged to talk to one another as well as with you. The sharing of thoughts is essential in the creative process, when the team communicate efficiently, it is easy to discover any issues before they could become problems, allowing corrective action to be implemented to prevent any further problems. Acquiring these techniques may take time, however the payoff is worthwhile. By encouraging a good team dynamic and listening to what your team has to offer, a successful business will be yours.
May 27, 2008 at 6:34 pm · Filed under Online Management
If you’ve ever listened to Warren Buffett talk about investing, you’ve heard him mention the idea of a company’s moat. The moat is a simple way of describing a company’s competitive advantage. A strong competitive advantage, or a wide moat, gives a company sustainability, which, as investors, we’re highly interested in.
In this article, we review a popular tool for evaluating competitive advantage, called SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis should be done on every company we’re thinking of making an investment in.
SWOT stands for:
Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats
Analyzing these four factors will help you make better investment decisions. It’s a brainstorming exercise, so take your time. A good SWOT analysis takes effort, but the more you put into SWOT analysis the better you will understand the company. Let’s look at each factor in turn.
Strengths
First, we look at the company’s strengths. What does the company do well? What makes it better than others? What does the company have, or do, that sets it apart from its competition?
These are important questions, and should include aspects of the company that made you consider it for investment in the first place. Look at branding, image, pricing power, size, market share, financial position (balance sheet strength), etc.
Here are some strengths to look for:
- The size of the company relative to others in the industry
- Balance Sheet strength
- Cash flows
- Perception of the company’s products
- Perception of the company’s brand(s)
- What advantages the company has over its competitors
- In general, what does the company do well?
Weaknesses
Now that you’ve determined how wonderful the company is, it’s time to look for the weaknesses. The same questions should be asked when looking for weaknesses. What does the company do poorly, or not so well? What are other companies doing better? What is keeping the company from greater success.
It’s important that you don’t gloss over this section. SWOT analysis is a brainstorming effort, so don’t discount anything that comes to mind. If you perceive a weakness, list it. The weakness you fail to list today could be why your investment turns out poorly next year.
Some weaknesses to look for:
- Deteriorating balance sheet
- Poor perception of company’s brand(s) and/or products
- Advantages other company’s have?
- Lack of management or other employee talent
- In general, what does the company do poorly?
Opportunities
We shift our focus to external factors when we look at opportunities. Here we try to identify areas of business we think the company is looking to enter, or should be looking to enter. We also look for opportunities to gain market share from competitors, or grow the company’s market to new customers.
But there are more than just external opportunities. There are opportunities within a company that should be considered. Can the company combine product lines to increase sales? Maybe the company has duplicate costs that can be streamlined. Companies can always find ways to do things better.
Some opportunities to look for:
- New markets for products
- Financial or legal trouble for competitors
- New technologies the company could adopt
- Changes in regulatory / tax burdens
- Strategic investments
- Internal efficiencies
Threats
Finally, we need to consider threats to the company. Again, threats can be internal as well as external. In fact, I’ve found that internal threats usually come first, which opens the door to external threats. Therefore, it’s important to do a good threat analysis.
Internal threats aren’t usually classified as such, which I think is a mistake. Any internal problem is a threat to the company’s well-being and should be evaluated alongside the external threats. For example, a company that relies on developing innovative products, such as Microsoft or Intel, faces the threat of losing engineering talent every day. This is an internal threat that could easily pave the way for external threats.
Some possible threats are:
- Internal obstacles the company is facing.
- Financial constraints on the company.
- Cash flow problems.
- The relative position of the company’s largest competitors.
- Technological advances in the industry (if the company isn’t keeping pace).
- New technologies that threaten to displace the company’s products.
SWOT analysis is a brainstorming activity, and you should learn from it. Focus on the weaknesses and the threats when doing SWOT, because that’s what will turn around and bite you after you make your investment. I’m not saying you should look only for the negatives, and ignore the company’s potential. But you should analyze the risks with as much, or more, scrutiny then the opportunities. Opportunities don’t always show up, but somehow risks always do.
About The Author
Chris Mallon is the editor and publisher of the Undervalued Weekly, a financial analysis newsletter. Chris holds a Master of Science in Finance and is the leading analyst for the Dynamic Investors partnership. He is available at chrismallon@dynamicinvestors.net or the through the website at www.dynamicinvestors.net/index7.html.
May 8, 2008 at 5:21 pm · Filed under Online Management
Negotiating is a hot topic these days for a good reason. It is difficult to imagine a more vital managerial skill than the skill of negotiating. Effective managers must be superior negotiators. Without solid negotiating abilities, managers will inevitably make serious mistakes in dealing with people at all levels, both inside and outside their organizations. As negotiators, managers must concern themselves with substantive issues and their continuing relationships with people. If they push too much, they may create hard feelings and a desire to exact revenge. If they are overly concerned about getting along with others, they may lose in many substantive areas, thereby negatively impacting upon their department and their organization.
Successful negotiating involves trading-off between getting along with people and getting what you want. All negotiators face this dilemma: “How can I get what I really desire and yet maintain a friendly relationship with the other side?” Those who can achieve these seemingly contradictory objectives have mastered the art of negotiating. Negotiation is a discussion between two or more people with the goal of reaching an amicable agreement on issues separating the parties when neither side has the power nor the desire to use its power to get its own way.
Collaborating is one of several problem-solving approaches, however collaborating looks for a workable solution and even-handedly explores the needs of the parties until they are reasonably satisfied. Its advantages are that both sides can win big and collectively find solutions, ideas, and outcomes that go beyond the scope of the individual parties involved. Personal relationships can improve rather than deteriorate. Its pitfalls are that it can be extremely time-consuming, and that negotiators with a forcing style may interpret this approach as weakness.
Copyright AE Schwartz & Associates All rights reserved. For additional presentation materials and resources: ReadySetPresent and for a Free listing as a Trainer, Consultant, Speaker, Vendor/Organization: TrainingConsortium
CEO, A.E. Schwartz & Associates, Boston, MA., a comprehensive organization which offers over 40 skills based management training programs. Mr. Schwartz conducts over 150 programs annually for clients in industry, research, technology, government, Fortune 100/500 companies, and nonprofit organizations worldwide. He is often found at conferences as a key note presenter and/or facilitator. His style is fast-paced, participatory, practical, and humorous. He has authored over 65 books and products, and taught/lectured at over a dozen colleges and universities throughout the United States.
April 12, 2008 at 12:24 am · Filed under Online Management
As the Baby Boomer generation exits the workforce steadily over the next 10 years, sourcing new candidates will become a tenuous task. Companies that understand the impending scarcity of candidates and can retool their process will have a marked advantage in acquiring talent.
One key to properly retooling will shift the current focus from experience to talent. This fundamental change will be precipitated by the need to develop talent as opposed to hiring experience. The experienced candidate will become a product of a supply and demand marketplace. There will be more demand with less supply which leads to increased wages. The highly successful, extremely experienced candidate will be able to take a free agent approach to their job search. They will be able to select from multiple offers and leverage the best overall package.
There is nothing new in this market-driven scenario except for one item. The supply will be greatly diminished which will put incredible pressures on the compensation packages. However, companies will have an alternative to the bidding war - hire for talent and develop for strength.
This shift in hiring focus will require an “outside the box” approach to candidate screening. The first step will be to wean the process off of the 20th century approach of placing an ad, receiving and reviewing resumes and qualifying candidates with a face-to-face interview. This 3 step process is riddled with vulnerabilities.
First off, the sheer number of responses will surely decrease let alone the quality of the applicants. Gone are the days of simply placing an ad in the Sunday edition of the local newspaper and collecting the overwhelming responses. Some online ads return volumes of resumes, but the applicants’ qualifications are often completely misaligned. Properly written online ads provide fewer responses but a higher quality of fit to the position.
Second, the majority of resumes (some statistics state >75%) contain embellishments of some form. Using these embellished, sometimes fictional documents to sort applicants is similar to building your house on shifting sands. The entire premise is flawed from the start. The resume elicits experience-based decisions which are less than reliable. The applicants’ embellished industry experience is weighted grossly higher in comparison to their true talent and abilities.
Finally, face-to-face interviews are needed in any hiring process, but again, they tend to be used out of sequence for an effective process. Society of Human Resource Management studies have shown that interviewers make candidate decisions within the first 7 minutes of the in-person interview. We are all susceptible to internal biases and blind spots. No interviewer is completely objective.
The aforementioned hiring approach was widely followed in the last century. The onslaught of the Internet, decreasing worker populations and exploding job productivity requirements have made successful hiring the key component of the 21st century.
Retooling a complete hiring process requires a company to release outdated, stereotypical approaches and embrace the tactics needed in today’s market. There are 3 steps all companies can integrate into their process today to begin the shift towards a reliable and repeatable hiring strategy.
Phone Screen. This article discusses new approaches to hiring and then leads off with a retro tool! Perhaps we should consider the phone screen a lost art. Oh, but how effective it is. In our own practice, we do not assist companies in hiring salespeople without using the phone screen. In fact, we use some variation of it for all positions - it is that effective. This approach removes many biases that naturally occur in a face-to-face meeting. An effective phone screen can be accomplished in 15-20 minutes which allows for many more to be completed in a day versus the traditional 1 hour, in-person interview.
The phone screen allows the hiring manager to get a better understanding of the applicant’s thought process, composure, communication ability and even, to some extent, their fit to the position. This tool is vastly more effective for pre-screening candidates than sorting resumes into yes and no piles.
Job Rewards. Remember the days when newspaper ads were riddled with acronyms and abbreviations to save on cost? There were literary artists who could describe an engineering job in 50 words or less. Those days are gone, yet we still see the occasional online ad written in that manner. One might as well place “dinosaur” in the ad’s title.
Today’s young job seekers value balance in their work life. Their rewards are less centered on material wealth accumulation. They still work to earn money, but they are greatly influenced by the job’s rewards. How will they personally grow in the position? What skills will they develop? How would you describe the company culture? These topics can easily be added to any online job posting since space is no longer a fiscal limitation. The candidates who respond to this information will have a strong interest in learning more about the role and typically will have a reinforced skill set that matches the position’s needs.
Objective Assessments. There are amazing tools available in the market today that will measure intrinsic traits in a candidate that not even the most skillful interviewer can ascertain. As previously stated, all interviewers bring biases to the process. Two techniques to limit these biases are the incorporation of objective tools and the delayed introduction of an interviewer’s bias into the process.
Candidates should be assessed before an in-person interview. The EEOC encourages this approach in all hiring processes. A validated assessment tool given to viable candidates provides a strong insulator for any hiring process. The tests do not introduce biases and generate objective information.
A secondary, powerful benefit to using assessments before interviews is that it changes the focus of the in-person interview. The interviewer now has reliable data about the candidate that can be explored within the context of the interview. The interview is shifted from the candidate mindlessly regurgitating previous work experience to an exploration into their talent areas and potential vulnerabilities in direct relation to the position for which they have applied.
Most companies have seen the significant shift in hiring that has occurred with the advent of Internet-based technology over the past 10 years. This fundamental realignment has already rooted itself into the economy. The next seismic shift is already underway as the Baby Boomer generation begins its exit from the full-time workforce. Companies that adjust their hiring process and adapt to the changing landscape will ensure their success in the evolving 21st century marketplace.
Derrick Moe is a Managing Partner of Select Metrix, a process-based hiring firm located in New Prague, MN that specializes in sales selection services. Select Metrix uses an array of approach & assessment techniques to find the strongest salesperson for clients’ specific needs. For more info please visit www.selectmetrix.com or call 952-232-0900.
